


The Book of my Life

by bananabog



Category: One Piece
Genre: F/F, Gen, Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-11
Updated: 2016-07-11
Packaged: 2018-07-22 23:48:49
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,904
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7458388
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bananabog/pseuds/bananabog
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It starts off awkwardly, like most other good, heartfelt, long-lasting friendships do. </p><p>Originally posted on LJ, Sep. 27th, 2006.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Book of my Life

**Author's Note:**

> For the prompt of "Na/Cho/Ro, 'The Last Unread Book on the Ship'.

It starts off awkwardly, like most other good, heartfelt, long-lasting friendships do.  
  
“Excuse me, but that’s _my_ book.”  
  
Nami’s hands are on her hips, trying to look as intimidating as she can; Chopper clings tightly onto her, his left eye safely hidden behind the slim mass of her right calf.  
  
Her cause for concern merely blinks and turns to a new page. Their newest crewmember is sitting on the steps leading up to the galley, leaning casually against the wall with both long, elegant legs crossed before her. A slender forefinger reaches out and gently touches a smooth, oval nail to the thin thread of text on the page.  
  
“I’m sorry, Navigator-san,” – Nami prepares herself for whatever bullshit the woman was planning to give – “the title caught my eye.”  
  
She waits, but is given only more silence. Robin’s finger slides a few millimeters down the page, pausing, feeling out the words, lips raised in a slight smile.  
  
“…and…?”  
  
“I borrowed it.” The older woman glances up then, her dark gaze calm, barely masking amusement at the younger’s confusion. “I’m sorry. Were you in need of it?”  
  
“N-no, but you could at least have – ”  
  
“What book is it?” Chopper abandons his fear in favor of curiosity, nosing up at Robin’s hands where the cover of the book lies tilted in shadow. He gives a little gasp when the archaeologist shifts enough to allow him to read its title. “Oooh, this one! Nami’s only ever let me read it once, but it’s really good – there’s a scientist in there, he messes up all the time and he’s really funny!”  
  
“Oh?” A lock of sharp, midnight hair slips out from behind an ear, and Robin tucks it back almost sternly, as she tilts her head at the little reindeer. “I’m afraid I haven’t read that far into the story, yet. I’m still only in the early chapters, Doctor-san; please don’t spoil me.”  
  
“Ah! I-I’m sorry…”  
  
“ – but perhaps we could discuss our favorite characters from the opening sequence,” she suggests instead, folding the book gently shut, smiling at the child doctor. “The male lead makes rather interesting decisions, don’t you think?”  
  
Chopper perks right up and launches into a ramble on why the male lead was awesome for various reasons, re-enacting memorable scenes from the story with enthusiastic waves and sweeps of his little arms. Nami feels rudely left out, like she's somehow blended into the background while Robin nods and chuckles during the appropriate intervals, blue eyes twinkling at the reindeer’s contradictory antics. At length, after Chopper had squee-ed himself breathless and lay as a mop of deflated fluff against her thigh, the archaeologist looks up, right into the navigator’s stunned gaze, and beams.  
  
“I’d dearly love to hear your thoughts on this book, Navigator-san.” Robin rubs a single finger over the worn, gray leather-bound spine, faded gold lettering glimmering weakly as she passes her hand over it, “considering you came after me for it, it must be a story you enjoy very much.”  
  
She should have grabbed Chopper, snatched the book out of the woman’s hands, disappeared back inside her cabin with a slam and not exited until Sanji-kun came knocking with lunch. Robin might have been able to buy her way into her favor, with that offering of jewelry from earlier, but… this was her book, dammit, and it’d been taken without permission from her room. And the woman had the gall to openly read it without feeling the slightest bit apologetic for her apparent rudeness. Raised questions, even.  
  
Nami sits herself a few steps away, propping her chin in her curve of palms. “…It was worth my money, for one thing.”  
  
“Hmm.” Robin tilts her head again. She gives the navigator another smile, and all of a sudden she doesn’t seem half as devious as she had been before. “And?”  
  
Their discussion lasts well past evening.  
  


_x x x x x x_

  
  
The three of them, as they quickly find out, are avid readers, and they’ve gone through everything there was to be read on board the little caravel: legends of the past, dusty volumes of encyclopedias with random yellowed brochures messily tucked between their pages, the strange pin-ups and grocery notes Sanji and Usopp leave on the fridge, the fine print on the tea bags, even the ironing instructions on the tags of various laundry. They read everything and anything, but eventually the list runs dry, and they take turns telling their own stories.  
  
Nami draws a tale of a poor but happy family of three: a mother and her two adopted children. She smiles as she speaks, bright grins like afternoon sunshine, warm and mellow like the fruit she grows. Her cheer darkens, however, when she speaks of the shark bastard whom she was forced to labor under, but she weathers bravely through, voice grating out years of loneliness and betrayal and pain until the day Luffy blustered into her life. Her voice alternates in its pitch then, from high to low to cheerful and annoyed, like the waves of a good, wild surf. Robin chuckles deeply behind her hand at her descriptions of the captain, much to Nami’s chagrin.  
  
Chopper is next. His story tumbles from his lips like a child who’s witnessed something so horrible that no amount of coaxing can draw the tale in its entirety – only broken fragments that form a shattered whole. His voice, tinged high with innocence, goes cold and frozen as he speaks of rejection and loathing, tone melting a little when he describes his emotions the day Dr. Hiruluk took him in. He sounds almost thawed as he recounts the single year he was taught to live like a human, but his words sharpen unexpectedly, take a plunge in temperature when he recollects the painful events that ultimately led to the Doctor’s death.  
  
Like Nami, however, he springs to life when he speaks of Luffy’s appearance. Chopper’s eyes shine, as he chatters excitedly about Wapol's defeat and describes the sakura blossoms they witnessed upon leaving the island. Robin is truly amused by this point; there are far too many sparkles in the air surrounding the little reindeer, and Nami has to slap him out of his haze before they go away.  
  
There is a second’s intake of realization after this, and then, as one, they turn to her. Their eyes – Robin notes they’re both a deep, gently curious brown – voice their questions for them.  
  
She stays silent for a few moments longer, thoughtfully, before speaking.  
  
“...I’m afraid I haven’t read that far into the story, yet.”  
  
Their shoulders slump in disappointment – she can see they’re barely controlling themselves – it brings a brief quirk to her lips, but no more.  
  
“That’s okay.” Nami doesn’t press, but the unspoken words are there: _We’ll listen when you’re ready._  
  
Chopper nods, seriously, and for a minute Robin thinks he looks like the captain. In fact, they both do. It’s the same thread of determination - determination born only of nakama – that runs in their eyes. It’s just there for an instance before it’s gone, but she sees it, and it gives her hope somehow.  
  


_x x x x x x_

  
  
“The most important things in a story,” the sniper declares, forefinger saluting the air, the other hand propped against his jutting hips, “are its beginning, its middle, and its end.”  
  
Chopper and Luffy coo at his words, awestruck; the captain claps his feet together. Nami and Robin are seated nearby, open books in front of each, pretending not to listen but failing terribly at their guise nonetheless.  
  
“It’s like a meal.” Luffy bangs a fist into his open palm, triumphantly. “You have the appetizers, then the main course, and then the dessert!”  
  
“Well done, genius!”  
  
“Woo hoo!” Predictably, the boy misses the sarcasm.  
  
“Lives, you idiot, the stories of our lives.” The sniper leans back on his hands and raises his chin to the darkening night sky, where streaks of purple are slowly layering over crimson-orange. He smiles at the first stars. “My beginning is already over. How long my middle will take me, I don't know – but I have my ending, so I’ll just work on towards that.”  
  
He pumps a fist into the air. “To be a brave warrior of the seas!”  
  
Luffy leaps up. “To be the Pirate King!”  
  
“To cure every illness in the world!” Chopper cries, almost tearfully, and the three of them sling arms about each others’ necks and do a strange little march around the deck.  
  
Nami stifles her giggles into the back of her palm. Robin shifts her a questioning glance.  
  
“I want…” Nami whispers, and she's smiling behind her fall of orange bangs, “to be able to map the entire world.”  
  
The navigator looks back up at Robin. The archaeologist meets her gaze, and is genuinely struck by the unwavering confidence she finds there. It’s child-like, carefree and unarguably resolute – so different from the strict young woman she wakes up with everyday, who oversees the crew. Something sparks in the pit of her belly, a flicker of fire she thought had gone out long ago. Her chest tightens.  
  
“I…”  
  
Her lips are moving before she has commanded them to.  
  
“I-I want…”  
  
The galley door bangs open.  
  
Luffy whoops loudly, rockets himself into the newly opened door, and is swiftly booted back out in a space of less than two seconds. Sanji emerges in his pink apron, spewing off a string of heated curses before abruptly switching his gruff pitch and tone to go squeakily heart-eyed, swooning at the girls from over ten feet away.  
  
“NAMI-SWAAAAAAN! ROBIN-CHWAAAAAAAN! DINNER IS SERVEDDDDD, MADE WITH THE UTMOST CARE AND LOVE FROM MY HEART TO YOOOOUU!”  
  
He swivels around, still grinning.  
  
“AND MAKE SURE YOU UNGRATEFUL BASTARDS AND ASSHOLES DON’T GET A FILTHY STEP IN UNTIL THE LADIES ARE SEATED!”  
  
Nami jumps up from her seat just as Zoro says something that has the cook whirling over the banisters to kick his face in. But she brushes her fingers across the back of Robin’s hand as she makes to leave – it tingles where their skin touches, like the calm flow of river water – and she gives the older woman a wink and a smile.  
  
“Don’t spoil me,” is all she says before slipping off, rolling up her sleeves as she storms over to the space of battlefield right outside the galley door.  
  
Robin watches the redhead punch the two hormonal boys off the side of the ship. There are resounding far-off splashes and three distinctively childish cheers. Luffy’s scream of glee resonates across the area (“THE DOOR ISN’T GUARDED!”) before Nami starts shrilling (“IDIOT, WE NEED TO EAT, TOO, DON'T YOU DARE - ”), and Usopp cackles like a maniac while Chopper begins panicking over the exchange of exasperated yelling.  
  
  
Robin folds the book before her softly closed, resting her fingers atop its worn cover. For a few moments she does nothing, gaze traveling far out across the rolling ocean, watching as the last swipes of sunset disappear from the horizon. A sea breeze caresses her face, toying with her hair; pressing against her lips like the sweetest promises and she breathes it all in, the night, the future, the new dawn she knows she will see tomorrow.  
  
She rises, casually tucking the loose lock of flowing ebony behind an ear, and disappears into the galley for a snatch of food before the captain swallows it all.


End file.
